Descenting Tea Tins

all teas will pick up the scent of another tea if stored improperly (not air tight and close to another tea, in with other teas, ect) and yes, it will alter the flavor some. if the two teas are close in smell and taste then you shouldn’t worry too much, but two radically different teas will contaminate each other. Since you plan on storing a green tea in there, i would wash it out, and maybe use a vinegar soak and/or baking soda wash, since im pretty sure greens are easily contaminated.

disclaimer i am by no means an expert, i only recently got into loose leaf teas, but i have been learning everything i can about tea, and i know storing teas properly is extremely important.

Hope this helps.

yeh, i have heard good things about dishwashers for tins, sometimes the leaves will get stuck in the cracks and continue to foul up the tin. what i am doing to completely by-pass this problem is paint mason jars black with many, many coats of paint, and seal them. granted, i had to soak the first jar about 2-3 times in vinegar water, but now the jar just smells like a jar, is air tight, and light proof. and it is MUCH cheaper than buying tins. and they wont bend. ever. >.>

I’m a big fan of denture tabs for cleaning tea ware. It works great for me. Then I have heard of people putting their tins in a very low oven to make sure they dry totally. I usually just wipe them and then air dry.

also, as a side note on storing the tea, im not sure if it will do anything or if it is even needed, but i plan on putting a small piece of coffee filter filled with rice into my first large bag of tea to possibly help reduce the moisture exposure to the tea leaves. its a 7 oz bag, so i will be opening the container alot, and im sure the natural humidity of the air will affect the tea somewhat.

In my experience, some smells just never leave. The stronger the smell, the longer it stays. The longer it is in the tin, the stronger it smells. My solution is to either stop using strongly scented tins or put similar smelling teas in it. So, I use the same tin over for mint teas or lemon blends. Most unflavoured tea leaves no smell, so I try to keep some clean for that purpose. That means that I have had to put some tins in the recycling or to other use, but even just leaving a tin aired out uncovered for days/weeks/months can help over time. There is no quick fix, unless the smell was very mild, in my experience.

I called Harney and Sons once because I had the tea chest with tiny special sized tins and I wanted to reuse the Hot Cinnamon Spice one for a different tea but couldn’t get the aroma out. The lady told me, “it can’t be done” and sent me a fresh, unused baby tin.

I tried an experiment with Mandala Tea Smart Soak to see if it would remove the odor from a tin. It did so but I did not rinse it thoroughly enough after letting it soak overnight. It removed some of the liner of the tin too. I don’t know if it would have not done this had I rinsed it immediately.

After washing tins, I like to air them out for a long time in a place where there is a lot of air flow, sometimes up to a month in the case of a strong tea. Once the smell is gone, then it gets washed again.

Cinnamon is the only one I couldn’t get “scent free.” All others are washed, dried, aired out, and reused.